News reports scream that 2014 was Earth's hottest year ever. The goal is to scare us into down-scaling our way of life and approving billions in giveaways to green energy.

But there's been no global warming for 18 years.

I'm using the reports from our weather satellites which scan the entire planet each and every day. When we launched them 30 years ago, scientists told us satellites would measure global temperatures far more reliably than surface measurements.

But alarmists still rely on a patchwork network of surface stations. Their thermometers are concentrated in urban areas with lots of human activity. There are plenty of gaps, so they make guesstimates about the temperatures in those big gaps.

By relying on their inexact and faulty system, their scare tactics are rewarded with huge government grants. They get rewarded for being politically-correct, but their faulty data is incorrect.

One banned substance is oak moss. Yes, moss that grows on the bark of an oak tree. It's a key ingredient in Chanel No. 5. And in other famous fragrances.

It seems that a very small number of people develop a rash from oak moss. Of course, the answer is that they should not wear this perfume. But when you ban its key ingredients, then Chanel No. 5 will no longer smell like Chanel No. 5. Nor will any other scent.

This is not about protecting the environment and it's not a big public health issue. But by messing with perfumes, it's just another stinky case of government gone wild.

Meanwhile, as politicians talk about other things, our national debt keeps climbing.

No matter what grabs the headlines, America's national debt grows relentlessly.

In 2014, the federal government sunk deeper into debt by $789 Billion.

Put another way, the debt went up $6,875 per household. Or $8,853 for every worker in the private sector.

The accumulated debt now is officially $18.1-trillion; that's $65,000 per household.

President Obama and other politicians may claim that the deficit is going down. That's designed to be deceptive. Even if the deficit were only a single penny, it means increasing debt. Reducing a deficit only means that you're going slower, but you're still going in the wrong direction, toward a cliff.

Safety requires stopping deficits, then shifting into reverse.

Don't let politicians distract you by talking about the deficit. Talk about the debt. And every deficit means more debt.

* * *

The biggest con artist in America ... is our own government.

Every day, public officials condemn fraud, or accuse groups of committing fraud. Real estate scams, identity theft, crooked corporations and the like. Even those who did nothing wrong often find it cheaper to settle than to fight in court against government's endless resources.

But is there a bigger con than using lies and deceptions to pass a trillion-dollar program like Obamacare?

What about the fact that the Social Security Trust Fund is only a bunch of IOU's from government, because it already spent all that money long before you retire.

And state lotteries become a tax on the poor or the desperate. They spend a bigger share of their income on lottery tickets than anybody else does.

Complaining about fraud in the private sector is a way for government to distract us, while it picks our pockets.

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